Thursday, August 04, 2016


Radio New Zealand reports a spike in employers failing to pass on Kiwisaver payments to IRD:

The number of employers failing to pay KiwiSaver contributions to their workers has jumped dramatically in the last year.

Figures obtained by RNZ showed that at the end of June, Inland Revenue was chasing 12,182 employers for $28 million in unpaid contributions and penalties.

A year ago around 2000 employers were being pursued for unpaid payments, a six-fold jump.

The debt included $12.32m in employee contributions that are taken from workers' salaries but never passed on to Inland Revenue which administered the KiwiSaver scheme.

These employers are stealing from their employees. There is no other way to describe it. Its their employees' money, and the employers are not doing what they are supposed to with it. And that makes it an open-and-shut case of theft by a person in a special relationship, which carries a penalty of up to seven years imprisonment.

If these thieving employers don't want to pay the money they owe, then IRD should pass their information on to police and have them prosecuted. Or do thieves get a pass if they wear suits?